"audio" articles

Every year, Amazon hosts Prime Day, a one-day event of deals exclusive to Amazon Prime members. On Monday, July 10, Amazon decided to open the floodgates early at 9 pm E.T., extending the typically 24-hour event (held on July 11) to 30 hours. The star of the event this year? The Amazon Echo.
Retailed at $180, Amazon Prime promoted the device at $89.99, a whopping 50% off. Other Echo devices were also priced lower—the Dot at $34.99, a 15% cut from $49.99, the Echo Tap at $79.99, a...

Consumers have been relatively quick to embrace voice-based applications, beginning and led by Apple’s Siri. Parks Associates research notes that at the end of 2016, 45% of U.S. smartphone owners reported using a voice-enabled personal assistant through an app or dedicated device.
As devices continue to add listening capabilities, voice control will extend throughout the home and in other connected devices as an intrinsic, easy, and natural way to facilitate smart home...

With news that Amazon is officially sold out (online) of Echo and Tap products until after the holidays, it looks like the smart speaker with personal assistant technology category has found its legs. Parks Associates forecasts 6 million U.S. sales for the category in 2016, which would double U.S. sales from 2015.
Several trends are driving the smart speaker/personal assistant device market. First, consumer familiarity and use with personal assistant software are one the rise,...

The power of audio was a reoccurring theme at yesterday’s CEDIA session: Growth & Future Outlook for the High-End Audio Market. Consumers’ attachment to music is a key influencer in the audio market. According to Parks Associates research, two-thirds of U.S. broadband households use a streaming audio service.
The panelists discussed current trends and the future outlook of the market. The session featured:
Brad Russell , Research Analyst, Parks Associates...

That sound you heard was Apple and (perhaps) Google watching as a major market opportunity passes them by.
Capitalizing on what amounts to over-the-speed limit momentum, Amazon has brought two new Echos to the market. The Dot, while interesting, is a fun add-on to smart home geeks who want a smaller, sleeker Echo to put by their bedside (and replace the smartphone as an ad-hoc alarm clock) or in the living room alongside the curved-screen TV, wireless multi-speaker setup and...